


I Could Fall...

by PhoenixDragon



Series: The Unthinkable Verse [5]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Angst, Horror, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-22
Updated: 2012-06-22
Packaged: 2017-11-12 06:46:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/487899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoenixDragon/pseuds/PhoenixDragon





	I Could Fall...

  
** _ The Unthinkable Series _ **

****

 

**'I Could Fall'**  
  
 **_____________________________________________________________________**  
 **A/N:** You can think of the Interludes as 'floating timestamps' if you will. Undefined moments within the fiction that could be almost anywhere. Most of these interludes have no set place and were dreamed up as 'snippets' (little pieces) of fiction that really had nowhere to be placed. I felt they deserved their own little sections though, as they weave into the overall story - just not into the chapters as they are being set. I certainly hope you enjoy them all the same. Think of them as puzzle pieces that are meant to define the whole picture.

**All Other Warnings and Disclaimers to be found at Part One**

**________________________________________** _____________________________  


**Second Interlude**

It was softly dark, the corridor beyond the cracked doorway humming in sleepy contentment, the air heavy with that feeling that crept behind the early am; everything holding its breath waiting for day.

Of course there was no daytime here. But that was a much better, more apt comparison (more comforting as well), than the one that immediately leapt to Rory's mind: the calm before the storm. The sorrowful delight of being alive before it all came crashing in.

The Doctor had tucked Rory's arm under his own, the rough scratch of tweed just below his bicep familiar and annoying, the cool, light touches of the Doctor's hands just as familiar and far less annoying. Comforting. Safe. Beautiful.

He held Rory's 'free' hand with one of his own, manipulating Rory's fingers into a fist and then open again. His head was relaxed against the pillow, but tilted so he could study Rory's pale fingers in the dark, thumb smoothing over the rough edges of his palm, just under those fingers.

"Thank you," he murmured, voice as soft and warm as the dark around them. "Thank you for not letting me fall."

His statement was so cryptic, so out of the blue Rory startled slightly, his sleepy shiver mistaken for cold or lust by the Time Lord, if it was noticed at all. Rory wondered at what he had meant, wondered if it had something to do with the fact the Doctor was in his bed; fully clothed, but still here. The thought of the Doctor not loving him back brought that ache he never expected (no matter how many times he felt it), but before it could become fully realized (that ache) he knew what he had meant.

 

_"I could fall...forever...would you like that? You could help me..."_

 

He shivered again, in horror this time - wondering why on Earth the Doctor would thank him for saving his life. Saving _their_ lives. Without him...Rory didn't want to think about his world without him in it. He wondered how he could have ever imagined a world without him. Amy was always there - not as she used to be, but he had learned to live with that. But to lose the Doctor? Too soon, it would have been too soon and he would have never known -

He pulled the Time Lord tighter against him, ignoring the soft sound of protest, burying his face in the nape of the Doctor's neck. He breathed him in and tried to ignore the hushed call of his name, the edge of the Doctor's voice saying this was important, he had to hear him.

The Doctor never let go of his hand, even as he leveraged himself out of Rory's tight grip, scooting around to face him, thumb still tracing the lifeline in Rory's palm. What he could see of the Doctor's face took his breath away - a muted awe and sorrow lighting his eyes as he brought Rory's hand to his mouth, cool lips a tingling pressure against his fingers.

"But maybe...maybe you should have." Serious. He was actually _serious_.

"Doctor, no -" Rory started to protest, before the Doctor smiled assurance at him, cutting him off with another kiss to the bend of his fingers.

"Because if you had, you wouldn't have let me fall so much further." He smiled again, the edges crimped with an apology that Rory didn't want to hear. He thought that they had gotten past this (together), but it seemed he had left the Doctor behind somehow.

"I took something," the Time Lord continued, eyes dropping away from Rory's with a flicker of unknown in their depths, the fall of his lashes a barrier Rory could never see past. "I took something that didn't belong to me that day. Something that has never belonged to me. I'm trying to give it back, but I haven't yet figured out..."

Rory's heart was starting to thud out of rhythm, an edge in the Doctor's voice harkening back to those days of suicidal recklessness. Those days when Rory feared he would wake up and the Doctor would be gone, leaving him to trudge on alone without any light to guide him.

"What?" Rory croaked, starting to feel anger curling alongside the fear, the Doctor's lack of understanding of what he meant to him having always been a barrier, but he hadn't imagined it was this unscalable. "You took nothing that day, you gave me -"

"I took you," the Doctor interrupted quietly, still unable to look him in the eye and dammit he didn't get to do this. Not now - not after _everything_. "And you aren't mine to take."

"But I am mine to give," Rory retorted thinly, mouth dry, dry, dry with fear and it had been so long since he had felt it, but it was truly an old friend, wasn't it? "And you've never - you can't seem to see that this is what I _want_. _You_ are what I want and -"

The Doctor shook his head, ghosting his lips along the tops of Rory's fingers and for a moment Rory couldn't breathe; the wonderful touch of those lips and the fear that drowned out everything aside from them too much to take in, his mind overloading with possibilities that were at odds with one another.

"I didn't lie on that day, Rory - I am death, do you understand? I can't...I can't have you. Surely you know that? You-you can't ever be mine. It isn't right, it isn't..." So gentle and he believed this, he _believed_ it and there was nothing Rory could do. He wanted to scream and shake him, he wanted to ask him if that why he would only touch him in the dark. If this was nothing but guilt to him and a way for Rory to exact his due - because it wasn't _like_ that, it never had been.

"You never take anything," was all Rory could manage. "You won't allow me to _give_ you anything, either. I just...I don't understand. What are you trying to tell me? Do you want me to leave? I could -"

" _No_!" The Doctor's voice was rough, bleeding a thicker darkness than Rory would have thought possible, his eyes still averted as if he was afraid he could melt Rory if he looked at him. "No, I -"

"Tell me what to do," Rory pleaded, clasping both hands around the Doctor's as if to anchor them both to now. "Tell me what you want from me."

The Time Lord chuckled, the sound anything but merry, his eyes so loving and kind and tired when he risked a glance at Rory's face; the quirk of his mouth denoting even less humor than his laugh.

"Don't let me fall."


End file.
